Airline stocks gain as air travel resumes from next week

ANI21 May 2020, 21:03 GMT+10

Mumbai (Maharashtra) [India], May 21 (ANI): The final hour of trading on bourses erased some intraday gains on Thursday but benchmark indices managed to close in the green led by gains in auto and FMCG stocks.

The BSE SP Sensex closed 114 points or 0.37 per cent higher at 30,933 while the Nifty 50 edged higher by 40 points or 0.44 per cent at 9,106.

Sectoral indices at the National Stock Exchange were mixed with Nifty auto up by 2.6 per cent, FMCG by 2.2 per cent and metal by 1.8 per cent.

Aviation stocks gained after the government announced that domestic airline operations will resume on May 25, two months after all flights were halted amid the COVID-19 crisis and countrywide lockdown.

InterGlobe Aviation, the parent company of IndiGo, closed 7.28 per cent higher at Rs 978.25 per share while SpiceJet surged 4.88 per cent to Rs 42.95 per unit.

FMCG major ITC moved up by 7 per cent while Hero MotoCorp accelerated by 4 per cent, Maruti by 3 per cent, Bajaj Auto by 2.7 per cent and Eicher Motors by 2.6 per cent.

However, Bajaj Finserv and Bajaj Finance dropped by 3.6 per cent and 2.9 per cent on poor Q4 results. NTPC, IndusInd Bank and Adani Ports too traded with a negative bias.

Equities got a boost this week as governments around the world gradually loosened their coronavirus lockdown restrictions, raising investor hopes that the economic impact of the pandemic will be short-lived.

South Korea's Kospi was up by 0.44 per cent but Japan's Nikkei fell by 0.21 per cent and Hong Kong's Hang Seng slipped by 0.49 per cent. (ANI)